LinkedIn is what happens when corporate America and motivational posters have a child and that child desperately needs validation from strangers. Every single day, someone posts "I got laid off six months ago. Here's what I learned." And then 47,000 people hit the light bulb react.
The content has become its own genre. You know the format: start with a fake casual opener, pivot to struggle, end with a lesson so vague it applies to literally everyone. "I was rejected 112 times. Then I got the job. Chase your dreams." Bro, that's not a takeaway, that's a survival statistic.
The worst is the humble-brag-as-thought-leadership pipeline. "Excited to share that I just closed a $40M Series B. The real win? I failed forward every single day." You raised forty million dollars. Stop making it about resilience. You made money. Be normal.
And the engagement farming. Someone posts "What's a book that changed your life?" and 9,000 people say Atomic Habits in unison like a chorus responding to a sermon. At what point is Atomic Habits just furniture? It's not changing lives anymore. It's what you say when you want to seem like someone who reads.
LinkedIn is Twitter for people who are afraid of Twitter but still need to be perceived as influential. It's an app that turned professional ambition into content. And somehow — somehow — it works.
